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Reciprocal Rights

Reciprocal Rights Version 2.9 (A cobbling together of The Bill of Rights, FDR's 2nd Bill of Rights, The Declaration of Human Rights, and the Bolivian Mother Earth Law)

OK - Why? This is WHY:

It has come to my attention that the Koch Brothers are making moves toward a Constitutional Convention (They are just 5 state house votes away from this goal at 29 states: 34 states needed). If this happens our Bill of Rights will be dissolved. So, if this happens I want to be johnny-on-the-spot with an even more all-encompassing set of rights for the citizens. I've done my level best to compile a set of rights that is all inclusive, including the rights of nature, and leaves no one behind. So, if we lose our Bill of Rights, or the Pacific Northwest, sensing a new aristocracy, decides to leave the Union - again, I want to lobby for the most liberal of rights possible.

Summary & Premise: I use the term "Reciprocal" with respect to this document of Rights because I envisioned a set of laws where every Right you claim for yourself you are required to extend that Right to all others - including Nature. I claim them all and extend them all to Everyone as defined. As written, it has a 'peer-to-peer' rights extension requirement of every citizen and public or private corporations, not simply a reservation of Rights against State power.

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Suggested Additions:

+ The Right of an Person to humanely terminate their own life shall not be infringed.+ There shall be no death penalty.

+ Water should be a right. Heathcare should be a right. Internet access should be a right

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Definition of Reciprocal Rights:

1. The term “Everyone” with respect to these enumerated Reciprocal Rights is defined as: all beings in possession of conscience and reason and natural empathy to include the mentally impaired and to specifically exclude corporations or other legal fictions.

The term “State” with respect to these enumerated Reciprocal Rights is defined as: the national or plurinational or regional or local government and its jurisdictions.

The term "Mother Earth" is defined as: a dynamic living system comprising an indivisible community of all living systems and living organisms, interrelated, interdependent and complementary, which share a common destiny. Mother Earth is considered sacred, from the worldviews of State and peasant indigenous peoples.

The term "Living Systems" is defined as: complex and dynamic communities of plants, animals, microorganisms and other beings and their environment, where human communities and the rest of nature interact as a functional unit under the influence of climatic, physiographic, and geological factors, as well as production practices, State cultural diversity, and the worldviews of State, original indigenous peoples, and intercultural communities.

The term "Living Wage" is defined as: a level of financial income sufficient to provide adequate food and clothing and shelter and recreation.

2. For the purpose of protecting and enforcing its rights, Mother Earth takes on the character of collective public interest. Mother Earth and all its components, including human communities, are entitled to all the inherent rights recognized in this Definition. The exercise of the rights of Mother Earth will take into account the specificities and particularities of its various components. The rights under this Definition shall not limit the existence of other rights of Mother Earth. Mother Earth has the following rights: (1) To life: The right to maintain the integrity of living systems and natural processes that sustain them, and capacities and conditions for regeneration. (2) To the diversity of life: It is the right to preservation of differentiation and variety of beings that make up Mother Earth, without being genetically altered or structurally modified in an artificial way, so that their existence, functioning or future potential would be threatened. (3) To water: The right to preserve the functionality of the water cycle, its existence in the quantity and quality needed to sustain living systems, and its protection from pollution for the reproduction of the life of Mother Earth and all its components. (4) To clean air: The right to preserve the quality and composition of air for sustaining living systems and its protection from pollution, for the reproduction of the life of Mother Earth and all its components. (5) To equilibrium: The right to maintenance or restoration of the interrelationship, interdependence, complementarity and functionality of the components of Mother Earth in a balanced way for the continuation of their cycles and reproduction of their vital processes. (6) To restoration: The right to timely and effective restoration of living systems affected by human activities directly or indirectly. (7) To pollution-free living: The right to the preservation of any of Mother Earth's components from contamination, as well as toxic and radioactive waste generated by human activities.

3. Everyone, to join the community of beings comprising Mother Earth, exercise rights under this Definition, in a way that is consistent with their individual and collective rights. The exercise of individual rights is limited by the exercise of collective rights in the living systems of Mother Earth. Any conflict of rights must be resolved in ways that do not irreversibly affect the functionality of living systems.

4. The State, at all levels and geographical areas and across all authorities and institutions, has the following duties: (1) Develop public policies and systematic actions of prevention, early warning, protection, and precaution in order to prevent human activities causing the extinction of living populations, the alteration of the cycles and processes that ensure life, or the destruction of livelihoods, including cultural systems that are part of Mother Earth. (2) Develop balanced forms of production and patterns of consumption to satisfy the needs of Everyone to live well, while safeguarding the regenerative capacity and integrity of the cycles, processes and vital balance of Mother Earth. (3) Develop policies to protect Mother Earth from the multinational and international scope of the exploitation of its components, from the commodification of living systems or the processes that support them, and from the structural causes and effects of global climate change. (4) Develop policies to ensure long-term energy sovereignty, increased efficiency and the gradual incorporation of clean and renewable alternative sources into the energy matrix. (5) Demand international recognition of environmental debt through the financing and transfer of clean technologies that are effective and compatible with the rights of Mother Earth, among other mechanisms. (6) Promote peace and the elimination of all nuclear, chemical, and biological arms and weapons of mass destruction. (7) Promote the growth and recognition of rights of Mother Earth in multilateral, regional and bilateral international relations.

5. The duties of Everyone and public or private legal entities are defined as: (1) Uphold and respect the rights of Mother Earth. (2) Promote harmony with Mother Earth in all areas of its relationship with other human communities and the rest of nature in living systems. (3) Participate actively, individually or collectively, in generating proposals designed to respect and defend the rights of Mother Earth. (4) Assume production practices and consumer behavior in harmony with the rights of Mother Earth. (5) Ensure the sustainable use of Mother Earth's components. (6) Report any act that violates the rights of Mother Earth, living systems, and/or their components. (7) Attend a convention of competent authorities or organized civil society to implement measures aimed at preserving and/or protecting Mother Earth. (8) Extend these defined Reciprocal Rights to all others. No additional duties shall be required of Everyone.

6. Everyone is endowed with reason and conscience and are born free and equal in their dignity and rights without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

8. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

(Framer's Note:

Article 8 - CB: true assertion: Not everyone has the right to own property - because first of all this is stolen land and then all the land ownership and wealth and inherited wealth / ownership is because of slave labor. So that's the history. Supporting Argument: https://youtu.be/6JErESW-CQI

GG: true assertion: Desiring a modern economy, which seems impossible without property ownership, I'm conflicted between two truths. I'm inclined to favor the existence of a modern economy even though it is the illegitimate ownership of stolen land. Sad but true - all so we can have a modern economy function. Again, I'm conflicted here. Your thoughts?)

9. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. (2) Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, philosophy and religion or other spiritual pursuit; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. (3) The State shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Religious organizations shall be prohibited from using public resources for their activities. Religious organizations that participate in the political process, shall be taxed at the for profit standard rate of taxation. (4) Everyone has the right of free expression and speech including but not limited to the freedom of the press and the right to freedom of association and the right to peaceably assemble and the right to petition the State for redress of grievance. (5) No one may be compelled to join an association. (6) Financial or monetary instruments or compensation in any form shall not constitute free expression or speech.

10. Everyone has the Right to seek a permit to bear firearms for the purposes of hunting wildlife, self defense, and/or the defense of property. Permits will only be granted to individuals who submit to a psychological diagnostic conducted by a competent and credentialed psychiatric professional and found to be mentally fit enough to bear firearms. Where an individual or group's mental state or personality defects, thus armed, poses an undue threat of harm to themselves or others, or exhibit abusive or bullying behavior or are diagnosed with extreme narcissism or sociopathy or psychopathy, they shall be prohibited from obtaining firearms permits under any circumstances. Individuals are personally responsible for each projectile discharged from any firearm they wield, and every consequence resulting from each projectile discharged. Each firearm permit holder shall be required to obtain liability insurance in advance of permit issuance as a permit requirement. A tax shall be levied upon the sale of all ammunition and the proceeds deposited in a gun violence victims' compensation fund. The State shall not revoke firearm permits nor confiscate firearms except where the State can prove irresponsible use of the firearm or firearm use in a criminal act.

11. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

12. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Definition of Reciprocal Rights and against any incitement to such discrimination.

13. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

14. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

15. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution where it is not the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes.

16. (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

17. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

18. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

20. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. Everyone has the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. A “reasonable search and seizure” is defined as: a search and seizure action based upon a warrant issued by a State judiciary where the basis of the issued warrant is provable probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

21. (1) Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense and opportunities to face his accuser. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offense on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offense, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offense was committed.

22. (1) Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial Judicial proceeding, in the determination of his rights and of any criminal charge against him. (2) In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of their peers in the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

23. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a jury of their peers, nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

24. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

25. (1) Everyone of majority age or consenting age, without any limitation due to race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, origin, property, birth or other status have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

26. Everyone shall have sovereignty over their own bodies and shall regulate their own reproduction as well as their consensual sexual activity with others of majority age or consenting age. Sexual activity with those below the age of consent or majority age shall be prohibited under any circumstances.

27. (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives or delegates. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures. (4) Everyone, by the will of the people, bares the right to dissolve their existing government, and establish a new government.

28. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

29. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration of at least a Living Wage ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

30. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

31. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

32. (1) Everyone has the right to food, shelter, medical care and education. (2) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

35. (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

36. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Definition of Reciprocal Rights can be fully realized.

37. Everyone has a Right to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

38. Everyone has a Right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment.